Parking Spot Disputes Too Common a Source of Violence

No final word yet on whether the recent Chapel Hill, North Carolina killings of three young Muslims of Arab descent was a religiously motivated hate crime, but it’s definitely a sad reminder of the fevered disputes that can arise over neighborhood parking spots.

According to a report in the Washington Post, “A preliminary investigation revealed that Hicks had previously clashed with his victims — husband and wife Deah Barakat and Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and Abu-Salha’s sister Razan — over parking spots in front of the apartment complex where they lived.”

Those reports don’t even take us back as far as 2013! And they don’t include the all-too-many cases where someone gets shot over a dispute that wasn’t between neighbors but was, say, over a parking space at a restaurant, gas station, or Home Depot.

I need hardly mention that the law doesn’t give anyone a right to defend their parking space to the death. But in case anyone is curious as to who has rights to a neighborhood parking spot in the first place, here’s a basic rundown.

In a condo, apartment, or community run by a homeowners’ association, parking spots may be “assigned,” or even individually rented, in which case only one person has a right to park there.

Of course, there will always be neighbors who violate the laws or community rules, or simply do obnoxious things, like park their third car in front of your house and leave it there for weeks at a time. In light of the passions that can obviously arise over such transgressions, it might be wisest, if you’re the one who’s bothered by a neighbor’s parking habits, to request action from the authorities — a landlord, a homeowners’ association, or the municipal parking authorities (who will often ticket or tow a car that has been in one place for too long).